The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller

Every so often I crave the simple yet flavourful chinese food dishes I used to ask for when we lived in Malaysia: steamed fish with ginger and scallions; emperor's vegetable stir-fried with garlic and fermented bean curd; or that ambrosial soup my mother-in-law makes with nothing but pig's liver, kidneys and red wine. Now that we live in Canada, I have to struggle to make these things for myself, so I reluctantly pulled a copy of The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook off the shelf. I'm not a great cook you see and my confidence (er, maybe that should be competence)has further dwindled now that I have a baby crawling around underfoot. So consider what a ringing endorsement this must be, especially coming from Julia-with-Child over here: This is one very fine cookbook indeed! It allows anyone to cook a great number of tasty authentic dishes, even when half your brain is occupied elsewhere. Even my husband , a picky chinese food eater from way back, prounounces the food to be very good.

I started by making a pork and watercress soup with a homemade stock that asks for a total of, like, five ingredients; super-flavourful. Then I branched out to a beef sauce for noodles and a braised eggplant dish. One day I even brought home a whole fish, just picked it up off the ice before I had even looked in the cookbook to see if I could deal with it. My faith was well-founded because I found several options that could be made with ingredients I had already kicking around the kitchen. And that's not counting many other yummy sounding possibilities. It was fab meals for days with that red snapper.

I haven't tried any of the hot and spicy recipes yet -too many ingredients, too much commIttment - but given my experience so far I'll bet they're worth the effort. Bley Miller goes over the basics of Chinese cooking in the front an the back of the book, some cultural background, techniques and equipment a glossary of ingredients,. This bit can actually be interesting reading "The cook, not the diner, cuts the food: to the Chinese, knives are barbaric instruments, suitable for the kitchen but not for the table". But it is most useful as a reference and one need never feel lost (Steam? How steam? Oh, see page 831). The bulk of the book is devoted to heaps of recipes, often three per page, including ingredients and instructions. Yes folks, they are that quick and easy!

On the cover there is an endorsment blurb from a New York Times review: "A Labour of love...Should be treasured by anyone with a serious interest in the Chinese cuisine." I take exception. You don't need a "serious"interest to treasure this book, you just need sundry tastebuds and an appetite.---RBR

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